A few months ago when I commented on a post by the lovely Beauty's Bad Habit about the Fairy Hobmother, I was more than a little sceptical...who gives out things for free nowadays? No one.

Imagine my surprise when I was contacted recently by the mythical godmother herself. I recieved a very nice Amazon gift voucher (ironically, on the same day we bought and recieved a new washing machine from Appliances Online) and subsequently forgot to post about it, because I'm cool like that. Fail...in my defence, school has been all over the place.

Better late than never, right? So if you comment below, there is a chance that the Fairy Hobmother might grant you a wish, too!

I have a confession to make...when I first applied this, I was slightly - unexplicably - disappointed. From the bottle, I'd been expecting this rich purple colour with some silver flash and all that, but in my artificially lit study, with the glow of my laptop screen as extra, I was just seeing three coats of a mauve polish with lots of pink, orange and a little green glitter in it. Nice - very nice, as it were - just not what I was expecting.

Viewing this baby in natural light, not to talk of sunlight, changed my mind completely.



Prettyyyyy.



Kiko, why you no name your polishes? Why you no readily available in the UK? Why you so pretty?



It's pretty opaque after three coats, but one thin one would do well as a coloured topcoat over a dark colour.



The name is Kiko. Kiko...262. Sounds like a prison number or something.


I didn't even have to colour-adjust for the purple to appear true to life. I'm pretty satisfied with this polish.

I found these beauties in Superdrug, and seeing as I've never seen them before I assumed they were new. Aside from the huge 'NEW' sticker that they're wearing...



First up, this gorgeous orange/red/coral mixture. This applied REALLY well, even for an MUA polish (which, even when you don't take the price into consideration, apply fantastically) and the colour would make a good pedicure colour for the summer. Which is sadly over (or never began, whichever way you want to look at it) but that doesn't stop me from wearing it.




Another gorgeous, bright shade that applied well...I'm convinced MUA have tweaked their formula to make it even more lush to apply, because I don't remember them being this great. They dry well between coats, don't bubble and don't chip badly until a few days in. My one bugbear with this is that the writing on the sticker wore off in record time, which just makes the bottle look tacky.




The purple heart of love is there to protect your eyes from that gross hangnail (sorry Loodie!) Moisturise, people. Don't be like me.





The last polish that I'm going to show you is this kkakhi coloured one. It's like an avocado green with a bit of sage and then lots of grey...very on trend. I didn't really expect to see something like this from a budget brand, so I'm pleasantly surpised. It wasn't as dreamy to apply as the previous two but it was still above average, so no complaints there.

I noticed one more autumn release on the shelves, so picked it up - it was a very light lilac polish. Took it home, opened it up to find gunked up polish all around the screws on the bottle. I really, really hate it when people test polish in store that isn't a tester, so will be returning that bottle to Superdrug. Pissed off.

Do you see what I did there with the title? DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

If not, you need to follow me on Twitter. @SeptemberLena

So today is (just about) the first of September, 2011. All through the summer, even though I've had awesome nail polishes to wear, my peeling, soft, and weak nails are continually spoiling the fun. I refuse to take any more of this.

Behold:



For the month of September (all 30 days of it) I will religiously apply these two products. Every. single. day. The short, slightly ominious looking blue one says to only apply two/three times a week, but I'm living on the edge. Every day. Under polish, most likely. Lol. Old habits die hard etc etc.

It'll be my first experience with Mavala...aside from a nail varnish drying spray and a set of nail files, I haven't really experimented much with them, and especially not with their new, revamped image. I'm hoping this nail serum and hardener set will help my nails. That and obviously eating healthier but that's so much effort, yano?

Also, seeing as it's the whole 'going back to school' period of time, I was floating the idea of starting a fashion/outfit blog, to blog the outfits I wear to sixth form (no more uniform. SCORE.) Would that be something anyone is interested in? *is nervous*

Anyone else making 'resolutions' this September? I have an excuse, you see. It's the start of the school year!